Beyond the readymade

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Beyond the Readymade

Willie Bester, South Africa. Sukungena e Bisho (Keep out of Bisho). 1992. Assemblage of photomontage, paint, sacking, tin cans, coiled metal, barbed wire, mesh, found objects. 96 x 127 cm. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)

This booklet will guide you along your journey of discovery. It has spaces for you to draw and write down your thoughts about what you see, think and feel. By working in this book you will have made a personal exhibition resource to take home with you.

This book belongs to: _________________________________________________________

Education Resource Series

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Thinking Beyond the Readymade This exhibition is made up of artworks that belong to the Wits Art Museum collection. Each artwork has been carefully chosen because the artists have used found objects from everyday life to make their work. As you go through the museum you will be able to explore what happens when artworks include ‘readymade’ elements in them. Think about what each object could mean to different communities. Ask how the importance of an object can change over time. Examine the changing relationship of art to everyday life, and how ideas about what art is always change.

When artists use objects that they did not make themselves we refer to these features as found objects. A found object may be a whole or a fragment of an object that is used as material to make an artwork. A ‘readymade’ is one type of found object. The term was first used by the French artist Marcel Duchamp to refer to artworks that were made from found objects, like a urinal and a shovel, that he did not change very much. By signing his name on them and putting them in art galleries, Duchamp challenged definitions of art in Europe and the global North.

In Africa, not all artists use found objects the same way Duchamp used them. The cowrie shells on these Ibeji (date unrecorded, acquired 2009) are found objects because the artist did not make the shells, but selected them because they are very important for Yoruba-speakers. The cowrie shells were originally used as a system of money. They now symbolise something of great value. By looking at the different ways that artists use found objects, we can find new ways to understand artworks and move beyond Duchamp’s definitions of the ‘readymade’.

Let’s look Look at the collection of artworks in the Maria Stein-Lessing and Leopold Spiegal cabinet, in the Street Gallery, and list all the found objects that artists have used to create these artworks.

Glossary Ibeji: In Yoruba culture, in Nigeria, a pair of twins is believed to have one soul. If one twin dies as a baby, the family have a wooden Ibeji carved as a symbol of the lost twin. The family look after this figure as if it were alive to make sure the living twin’s soul is at peace. The sculptures may be dyed, or decorated with shells, glass beads and metal because all these materials are an important part of Yoruba culture and symbolise how valuable the Ibeji are to the family.

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Artist unrecorded. Yoruba, Nigeria. Ibeji (pair with shell beads). Date unrecorded, acquired 2009.

Wood, pigment, shells, beads, metal. 26 x 6 x 7 cm. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)

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From Representation to Re-presentation

Bronwen Findlay, South Africa. Belongings. 2007. Oil paint and found objects on canvas. 200 x 300 cm. Presented in 2012 by the artist to Wits Art Museum

When artists choose to draw or paint an object from the world then we say that the artist is representing that object. This happens for example, when Bronwen Findlay paints the pattern from the embroidered bed cover in A painting about a bedspread (2004) (right).

By incorporating found objects in their artworks, artists move from representing something to presenting the actual object as art. In becoming part of an artwork, found objects, like the picture frame, flower garland, walking stick, and doilie in Bronwen Findlay’s Belongings (2007) (above) are removed from everyday life, to become part of the re-presentation of everyday life.

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Let’s draw Can you draw some of the objects that Bronwen Findlay used from everyday life in Belongings? Is your drawing a representation or a representation?

Bronwen Findlay, South Africa. A painting about a bedspread. 2004. Oil paint on canvas. 164 x 158 cm. Presented in 2014 by Storm Janse van Rensburg to Wits Art Museum

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The Meaning of Objects The meaning of an object does not always stay the same. Objects have different meanings for different people, and those meanings can change over time. Your family, your culture, religion, society, or your experiences in the world influence what an object may mean to you. The many meanings of an object influence our understanding of the artworks they are part of. Brett Murray has used soil to refer to the land that was stolen during the colonisation of South Africa. Land (1996) will have different meanings for those who have gained or lost land during South Africa’s brutal history.

An object may be valued because of what it is made of, or what it is used for, or both. This Nkisi (Baboon skull), (date unrecorded, acquired in 1996) is made with a real baboon’s skull.

The skull, nested in its woven holder, is transformed into a container for powerful medicines used to heal and defend the users.

Let’s find Can you find an example of an artwork in which the found objects add interesting meanings to the artwork? Record the details of the artwork you selected in the space below: Artist: Date: Title: Medium: What do the objects symbolise for you?

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Above: Brett Murray, South Africa. Land. 1996. Metal, plastic board, bottle, sand, perspex. 90 x 81 x 10 cm. Wits Art Museum Top left: Artist unrecorded. Bassombo-Bassalongo, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nkisi (Baboon skull). Date unrecorded, acquired 1996. 19 x 27 x 22 cm. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)

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Interpreting Artworks To interpret an artwork is to figure out what the artwork means to us. Sometimes our interpretation is different from the artist’s intention. When interpreting artworks, it is useful to ask questions of what we are looking at.

Detail: Willie Bester, South Africa. Sukungena e Bisho (Keep out of Bisho). 1992. Assemblage of photomontage, paint, sacking, tin cans, coiled metal, barbed wire, mesh, found objects. 96 x 127 cm. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)

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Let’s look carefully Let’s practice interpreting together. Look at the work Sukungena e Bisho (Keep out of Bisho) by South African artist Willie Bester. Write down your answers to the following questions in the space provided: What do you see?

How do feel when looking at this work?

Do you recognise any of the found objects used in this artwork? Write down what the objects remind you of:

Why do you think the artist chose to combine painted images (representations) with found objects (re-presentations)?

What does this artwork mean to you?

Let’s talk in pairs Take turns to tell your partner about the artwork and what it means to you. Was your interpretation the same as your partner’s interpretation? What was similar and what was different about your interpretations?

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Making the Ordinary Extraordinary As objects move through different spaces they build layers of meaning and can be important in many different ways to a range of people. Each new owner will give an object new meaning. For example the doll used to make this Gimwane, (Child figure) (date unrecorded, acquired in 2013) was manufactured to be used as a toy, then it was transformed for use within cultural practices, and is now considered as an artwork in the Wits Art Museum collection.

Let’s Write Find an artwork that includes a found object that means something to you. Can you imagine what the ‘social life’ of the object you have selected might have been? Write your story for this object in the space provided:

Above left: Artist unrecorded. Ntwane, South Africa. Gimwane, (Child figure). Date unrecorded, acquired 2013. Found plastic doll, clay, graphite, grass, beads, fibre. 29 x 23 x 29 cm. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum) Left: Patrick Siwundla, South Africa. Toy Wire Car. c1995. Galvanised wire, plastic, rubber, metal rods, string, polystyrene. 31 x 71 x 37 cm. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)

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Our relationship to objects changes once they become artworks. Found objects are given a new value and looked at differently to ordinary objects in the home. For example, toy car parts in Patrick Siwundla’s Toy Wire Car (c1995) or the toy sheep used by Peter Schütz in Landscape with Sheep (1981) would be played with and handled by children when they were thought of as toys. Now that they are part of an artwork viewers look at them, but never touch them. This museum rule tells us that these artworks are special enough to preserve for future generations and need to be cared for because we think they are more valuable than when the found objects were just toys.

Let’s talk Can you find any other artworks that have been made with toys you might see in your home?

Talk about the difference between how you might relate to the artwork as a toy and how you relate to it now in the museum?

Peter Schütz, South Africa. Landscape with Sheep. 1981. Gelutong wood, metal, acrylic paint and toy plastic sheep. 33 x 42 x 30 cm.

Wits Art Museum

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Your Turn On the card provided, draw an artwork which includes an object that is part of your everyday life.

Write about how the meaning of the object has changed for you after it became part of that artwork. When you are finished, share your work by placing it on the response wall.

Detail: Patrick Siwundla, South Africa. Toy Wire Car. c1995. Galvanised wire, plastic, rubber, metal rods, string, polystyrene.

31 x 71 x 37 cm. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)

This educational resource was written by Alison Kearney and produced by Wits Art Museum as part of the educational programme for the exhibition titled Beyond the Readymade. The resource and educational programme were made possible by a generous grant from Merrill Lynch (SA) and Business Arts South Africa.

Paul Emmanuel Design